It’s the season of parties and Christmas dinners – and terrific as toddlers are, they can be taxing when over-stimulated or bored. Here’s how to prevent it.
“Toddlers don’t have the attention span of adults,” says Thabile Zondi-Rees, a Cape Town clinical psychologist. “But they also need to learn to socialise, to relate to others and to develop independence.”
Holiday gatherings are a great way to help them do just that. All it takes is a little advance preparation and guidance.
1. Set up an art table
In a room away from the adult action, cover a table in plain white butcher’s paper or brown book-covering paper, and put out crayons or koki pens. Encourage little ones to draw, with a theme such as “family” or “Christmas”. Older ones can write things – songs, jokes, poems.
2. Create a craft corner
Set out paper, card, old magazines, fabric scraps, blunt-ended scissors, crayons, stickers, bits or ribbon or string, beads and bottle tops. Invite little ones to make decorations for the Christmas tree, or fun accessories, from necklaces to wrapper rings, for themselves or as gifts. They can even try making creative cards and wrapping paper.
3. Prepare a playroom
Clear it of breakables and clutter, throw a couple of old mattresses and cushions on the floor, and invite the kids to romp! This is a great way to let off steam. Appoint a responsible older child to oversee activities, such as releasing a bunch of balloons to “bat” with hands – the aim being to keep balloons from touching the ground. Or you could paste sheets of used A4 computer paper or old newspaper across the floor at 1m intervals, and challenge kids to jump from one to the other while music plays, freezing whenever the supervising kid switches it off.
4. Begin a sandbox
Line the car boot with plastic garbage bags, and fetch a load of sand from your nearest beach or hardware store. Or simply loosen the earth in a bare spot in your yard. Fill a bucket with recycled water, and set out old yoghurt, cottage cheese or ice-cream tubs, and old spoons for shovels. Little ones will need no invitation to build dams, streams, sand-castles and mud pies.
5. Get them cooking
Invite your kids to help you whip up a batch of cupcakes or plain biscuits before the gathering. On the day, set these out on a table with bowls of icing in different colours, and strong plastic bags with a tiny hole snipped in one corner as icing bags. Also put out bowls of hundreds and thousands, edible silver balls, chocolate sprinkles, Smarties and jelly tots, and let them get decorating! They can present their best efforts to their parents as take-home gifts, and devour the rest.
6. Stage a cabaret
Set out a dress-up box of old clothes, hats and scarves, and another box of cheap make-up, and a mirror. As littlies arrive, pack them off to prepare an act of any kind, older kids helping supervise the youngest – singing, miming and dancing. Invite them to perform for the adults before dessert is served.
IMAGE CREDIT: Getty Images